Patchworks of Peace
by Dalamanza
Summary: Peacetime was a patchwork of moments: happiness, grief, and the mundane, woven into one. It is surely a peace worth piecing together. [A collection of moments, in no particular order, from after the seventh book. REQUESTS AND SUGGESTIONS WELCOME.]
1. Introduction

**September 1st 2017; nineteen years later.  
**

 **Congratulations, we've all made it! Doesn't that make you feel old. . .**

 **To commemorate Albus' first day of school, I'm posting this collection of one-shots about life after the war. It's basically an excuse for me to better explore the characters, especially those who don't get as much priority in the books, with each chapter providing a snapshot of these people's post-book lives. I've tagged a few characters in the description, but in reality I will (hopefully) have chapters on a range of characters, whether it's Harry, the Dursleys, or Grawp.**

 **I have several ideas for chapters already, but would love to turn this into a kind of request fic, SO IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUESTS OR SUGGESTIONS PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME! If there's a particular story or idea you want to see, no matter how thoroughly thought out, let me know in a message or a review.**

 **Just a heads up, I will be drawing inspiration from the post-book information released on Pottermore and JK's twitter, but I won't be treating it as gospel. If there's something you notice I've said - a character's job, for instance - that is different to JK's version, feel free to tell me (I'd be interested to know), but be aware I might not change it if I feel my version works better for the chapter.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!**

 **~ Harriet**


	2. Tick, Tock (Harry & Ginny)

There was a gentle _tick_ , _tock_ , counting down the silence of the house. It felt like hours now that she had been listening to it, echoing within the stillness. She had tried to keep count, but could not keep her thoughts from drifting away to that dark place she was so studiously avoiding. Her mind would stray, she would lose track of what _tock_ had just followed which _tick_ , and she would start counting all over again. She was currently at 302.

Though she was listening to the clock, she wasn't watching it. Not that clock at least. Her eyes had long since moved beyond the ticking second hand, and were fixed instead on the larger clock behind. This clock was different; her mother had made it for them when James had been born. It had five hands, each with the name of a family member, and around the edge were written descriptions such as 'at school', or 'shopping'. Three of the hands were currently pointed at 'asleep'. One said 'at home'. The fifth had recently moved from 'in mortal peril' to 'at work'.

As she counted the 314th _tick_ , the hand she was watching shifted casually over to 'travelling', and she slipped silently out of bed, draping her dressing gown across her shoulders and padding barefoot downstairs.

She settled herself on the usual sofa – the one within sight of the door, but not right beside it. He knew what she was like, that she would be waiting, but there was no need to worry him unnecessarily.

If she had still been counting, she would have known it to be 124 seconds later that the tell-tale sounds of him arriving filtered through the front door, and merely another eight before her weary husband stepped inside.

There was a procedure for this; a routine. First, relief. Second, check for physical harm. Third, for emotional distress. Finally, if she were lucky, there would be relief again. Occasionally she would throw in a dose of irritation, if it sounded as though he had been unnecessarily reckless, though that was mostly for show.

He was standing, that was important, and he didn't seem bowed down by any serious injury. In fact, the only sign of outward harm was a slash on his cheek, already partially healed, and a slight crookedness to his right arm, which, she belatedly realised, was held in a sling beneath his cloak. His clothes had the crumpled look of having been very wet and then magically dried, and the remnants of that same moisture had slicked back his copious hair, for once holding it away from his face. The clothes weren't torn, however, which would suggest they disguised no great injury beneath.

He was smiling at her, and, though he was clearly tired, it looked genuine. That in itself was reassuring. Harry was one of those people who found it very hard to smile when something terrible had happened, even to comfort his wife, as though to do so would disrespect whatever horror he had witnessed. If it had been a bad night, he would also generally take a few moments before coming in, which he hadn't done tonight.

Relief, then, seemed a suitable way forward.

As the door closed behind him, she could almost feel the clock upstairs sliding its final hand into place. Her husband was _at home_. All five of her family, present and accounted for, her job done and dusted for the day, thank you and goodnight.

He had moved across the room towards her, and now she finally smiled too and rose to greet him. His breath was hot in her ear, and the firmness of his hug suggested that, though it hadn't been _one of those_ nights, things had perhaps come closer than she had initially diagnosed.

"You shouldn't have waited up" he murmured, more out of habit than anything else. She didn't bother to answer, instead reaching up and fussing with his hair, ruffling it up until it looked more normal. Then she brought her hand down to his cheek, palm against the cut in unspoken enquiry. He brought his hand to rest on hers.

"Prisoner escaped from custody. Took us all night to track him down, but it was pretty routine. I fell at one point," he raised his injured arm, "and got this from a _diffindo_ ," he gestured to the cut.

She pulled their hands from his cheek, keeping hold of his in hers and leading them to the sofa.

"Sounds incredibly boring," she joked, though the house was so quiet and she herself was so at peace now he had returned that it emerged as little more than a whisper. She settled back against him and looked up to his face. "Where's my tale of thrilling heroics, daring adventure?" She shook her head in mock disappointment. "I'll have to think of something else to tell the girls at the office tomorrow."

He laughed, but also quietly. It was always this way, when he returned late but unharmed. Awake later than usual, drowsier than they would be had they stayed up intentionally, and more content than they could have been had the night gone another way. In a house hushed by other people's sleep, their own wakefulness was a warm and secret bubble, and neither were willing to let it burst.

"You should have seen Ron," he said, breath tickling her face. "Black eye the size of a quaffle, and a nose as crooked as Dumbledore's." He laughed. "Unfortunately, the mediwitch fixed him up before I could get a photograph. I think he was a little disappointed, if I'm honest."

She smiled at the thought of her brother showing off his bruises, regaling anyone who would listen with the story behind them. Harry may be subtler, but she knew he too enjoyed being able to tell stories about scars that didn't involve Voldemort, or his parents' death.

"He probably would have framed it," she giggled. "Looked at it each night before bed."

"Hey," Harry scolded, hitting her arm gently, but he too laughed.

He stretched out his neck, laying his head back against the sofa, and let out an enormous yawn. She could feel her mouth twitch in response, eventually giving way to a yawn of her own. She elbowed his leg.

"That was your fault," she accused.

Her head had slipped onto his lap by now, and it was incredibly comfortable. She was also finding it harder and harder to keep her eyes open, and, if she were to let herself, she knew she would have no trouble falling asleep right there and then.

Harry shifted slightly, but seemed to decide that was response enough. They were even breathing quietly now, too reluctant to break the sleepy silence.

They should head to bed. They were both working the next morning, and, even if they hadn't been, the kids would no doubt be up and demanding attention by six-thirty. But the bubble was still there, and going upstairs would only wake her up again, pleasant drowsiness shaken off by the time she had climbed the stairs and brushed her teeth once more.

Besides, she could still hear the faint ticking from upstairs, only now – nestled into Harry, worry resolved – it had become a source of comfort, not suspense. As she slipped further from consciousness, she lost track of whether it was still coming from her room, or if it issued from some dream already waiting, calling for her to join.

Harry had already surrendered to sleep's beckoning finger, if his light snores were any indication, and she gave trying to resist. She drifted, and in her haze she found herself instinctively counting the seconds once more.

 _One, two, three_

She was going to woken in a few hours, she just knew it. Harry would move in his sleep, or one of the children would come down for some water, and she would regret not having moved upstairs.

 _Four, five, six_

And she would definitely have a stiff neck in the morning. Surely this extravagant level of comfort couldn't last – it wasn't fair to everyone else.

 _Seven, eight, nine_. . .

They should make cushions shaped exactly like Harry's lap. There must be a spell for it, somewhere. If she discovered it she could sell them, and they would be millionaires.

 _Ten, eleven, twelve_. . .

That would be nice. She could finally take the whole family to Egypt again. Harry had offered, but it hadn't felt right using his family money, even now that it was officially half hers.

 _Thirteen, fourteen_. . .

She really was so lovely and warm. Perhaps she was in Egypt already.

 _Fifteen, sixteen. . . seventeen_. . .

That would be nice. She could finally take the whole family to Egypt. . .

 _Seventeen. . ._

 _Eighteen. . ._

And she was gone.


	3. Eulogy (Neville)

One of Neville's earliest memories was of a trip to St Mungo's.

It was a hazy memory, mostly, enduring only in fragments. Waddling through the wide front doors beside his grandma, a chubby five-year-old in a fraying Gryffindor scarf, one hand clenched tightly in her robes, thumb of the other lodged firmly in his mouth.

"We're going to see Mummy and Daddy," she had told him, but he hadn't really understood what that meant. He knew what a mummy and daddy were, of course. A mummy was a beautiful lady who loved him more than anything else in the world, and would hug him whenever he wanted and sing when he was scared. A daddy was a fantastically brave and clever man, who would look after Neville and help him grow up to be just as brave and clever as himself.

Lots of other children had mummies and daddies, he knew that. He had a grandmother, and the scarf around his neck.

Parts of the visit he remembered in excruciating detail. Entering the big, white ward, and being scared of the strange old lady in one of the beds. Clutching his scarf and hiding behind his grandmother. Peering around her skirts as the nurse pulled back the stupid partition that was keeping his parents from him –

He remembered seeing his mother first. She was sat in a wheelchair facing them, as though she had been on the stage and waiting for him long before the curtain rose. This mummy was not beautiful; not anymore. There was no control in her facial muscles, and the slack expression and drooping features twisted her face unnaturally. Her hair, though clean, had thinned and greyed at the edges, and her skin was yellow and waxy, with the outline of bones too visible behind.

Somewhere in his infant brain, however, some long-lost connection had been reformed, and through his five-year-old eyes she had seemed the single, most radiant creature on the planet. The new word _mummy_ suddenly made sense, and he could pretend that the confused expression she wore when looking at him was only her surprise at what a big boy he had become.

She had said some words that Neville didn't understand, but that was okay, because his grandmother hadn't seemed to understand them either, instead sighing and pushing him further towards the waxen figure and the overlarge wheelchair. The angel lady had looked at him curiously and reached out a withered hand, gently prodding him between the eyes as though wondering how he worked. Cautiously, he had taken the offered finger and clutched it in his own tiny fist. He smiled, and the mummy smiled her twisted grimace right back.

Suddenly, she had picked him up, as though she had been doing it all her life, and rested him on her lap, never faltering in her senseless stream of babble. His short arms had slotted around her neck, and she had hugged him back; and it didn't matter that she held him too tight, or that she still looked unsure of who he was, because she smelt of peppermint and flowers, and the beautiful, fragile mummy was _hugging_ him.

It was from his mother's lap that he first saw his father. The bowed and trembling figure tottered down from the other end of the ward, leaning heavily on the nurse who had fetched him, and reminding Neville too much of a drawing he had once seen of an inferi. He too had the premature grey to his hair and unnatural yellow to his skin, and was, in every aspect, almost incomparable to the strong and handsome picture in Neville's grandmother's locket.

Neville knew he was supposed to grow up like his father, but for the first time the thought had scared him slightly. He wasn't sure he wanted to walk that slowly, or look that small.

Though Frank Longbottom's face showed little more comprehension than his wife's, there was undoubtedly an eagerness to his halting step, and as soon as he neared the wheelchair his paper arms had stretched out and around his son. Before long, Neville had decided that if he grew up to hug like this then it might not be such a bad thing after all.

In those early years, Neville had needed little more than this from his parents; to sit him on their lap and listen to his stories, to make him feel loved, and special. In truth, this was all they were ever able to give him, and consequently all he would ever expect – or need – from them.

As he grew older, he had come to better understand his parents, learning from the nurses and his own experiences how best to approach them, and elicit responses. There were good visits and bad visits, times they were happy to see him, times they wouldn't even look at him. Their limited understanding was always fluctuating, though, overall, he didn't believe they ever really gained any extra comprehension of who he was and what he said, no matter how many times he went. The nurses said his visits helped, however, and the couple always seemed sad to see him go.

Odd as their situation might be, since that first visit Neville had never again felt parentless. He knew that countless children had grown up with parents that were always around, and yet had never felt the innate, primary love his own mother and father had repeatedly shown themselves capable of.

He had his own memories to cherish, knew his own feelings. Yet as he sat now, dreaded blank page before him, he found himself struggling for the right words for what he wanted to say. There was no shortage of nice things to say about the couple. But how could pen on paper, or words to mourners, ever help others to understand the life of his little family? How could he convey to them a situation so unique, and so conducive to pity, that it was rarely met with anything but sympathy and well-meant condolences?

In this, his final goodbye, he wanted the world to know that he had never felt deprived in the way it had thought him to be. Yes, he had yearned for a normal family life. Yes, he had lamented that he would never hold a proper conversation with his mother or father. But he had known something just as special as any child that had ever felt a parent's love.

The parchment was impossibly white and empty on the desk in front of him, but he slowly dipped the end of his quill into the ink pot and placed it firmly at the top of the page. The first mark made, the paper no longer seemed so daunting, nor the task so scary. He thought of those first hugs, the ones that made everything so much less frightening, and began to write.

 _Frank and Alice Longbottom – A Eulogy_

And then underneath:

 _Loving, and being loved by, my parents._


End file.
